Saturday was a long day for Dale and I.  We started by getting our yard back in order.  The lawn hadn’t been mown in over a week and the heavy rains and flooding from the past few weeks certainly wasn’t slowing down growth!

After tending to the lawn, doing some much needed weeding, and bush trimming, we took a trip up to Sheboygan to visit with Dale’s dad.

Getting back at 4:00PM, I wasn’t without motivation.  I decided to make a fresh pasta to make with our meal for Saturday night.  If you haven’t made your own pasta, you have to try at least once.  I find the following recipe works great.

Fresh Pasta Dough

Ingredients

2 eggs, room temperature

2 cups all purpose flour

1/4 cup olive oil

3 T water

Preparation

1. Sift the flour into a bowl.  Make a well in the center of the flour.

2. Mix the eggs together with a fork and then whisk in olive oil and water.

3.  Pour the wet mixture into the center of the well and begin mixing together with a fork.  Once mixed, remove from the bowl and begin kneading for a few minutes until the dough is smooth and elastic.

4.  Wrap the dough tightly in plastic wrap and let it rest for 30 minutes at room temperature.

5.  Roll out and cut your dough.  I prefer to use a pasta rolling machine (old-fashioned crank kind).

Now for the main attraction.  I saw this recipe in Gourmet a while back.  This “bolognese” (as Gourmet places in quotes) is a vegetarian version of the classic, thick, delicious sauce.  I was intrigued and set out to make this sauce.  The result was wonderful.  This very thick, complex, somewhat sweet, somewhat “meaty” sauce was wonderful on my fresh pappardelle.  I wound up making one and a half times the amount of sauce necessary.  There’s enough for four future servings of this great, meatless dish.

Technorati Tags: Pasta, Pasta Sauce, Vegetarian

Great weeknight meal made from scratch.

Technorati Tags: Butternut Squash, Pasta

Looking for a quick, meatless pasta meal?  This recipe was found in the November 2009 Cooking Light Magazine.  I tried it about a week ago.  This recipe includes radicchio.  Radicchio is a small, tight-leaved head of lettuce.  It is sold in head form at the grocery store and is a beautiful white and red color.  This leafy vegetable is quite bitter.  Pairing the radicchio with sweet caramelized onion and cutting through with some acidic white wine was a great choice.  I have to say this dish has quite a balanced flavor.  I added a bit more red pepper flake as I thought this recipe could use a bit more heat behind the scenes.  Reader beware:  If you’re bitter-averse, you may not like this dish.  I’ve found several comments online where people were not impressed.  My assumption is that the radicchio was too strong a flavor for their taste.  It’s not for everyone!

Click on the recipe below to link to myrecipes.com where the recipe is posted publicly.

Technorati Tags: Pasta, Radicchio

Tomato - Courtesy of acobox.com

Well, Dale survived the week of tomatoes, garlic, and a bit of spice.  It’s not always easy living with someone that has stomach issues (Barrett’s Esophagus) but we survive.  As time goes on, we’ve learned how to modify recipes to meet the his current needs as well as when we need to eat a toned down meal.

The Pork in Paprika sauce was wonderful.  To be describe it, I would have to say it’s a combination of a goulash-style recipe with a hint of sausage with peppers and onions…with the sausage being substituted with pork.  We had this meal with a side of mashed cauliflower with a reduced-fat herbed boursin.  Very tasty!

The Fresh Manicotti was even better.  I have to say, this is the first time I’ve made crespelle and they turned out wonderfully.  Crespelle being these Italian crepes are a great alternative to the dry manicotti shells you buy in the store.  If you don’t have a pastry bag, filling a manicotti shell is virtually impossible.  I’ve seen fresh pasta rolled out and cut into rectangles.  The crespelle approach is a much faster way to make this dish.  Next time I make this dish, I will modify the inside filling to include spinach.  I think a spinach and ricotta filling would be a great alternative and lighten up the dish a bit further.

Technorati Tags: Pasta, Pork